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So, after being told by several prospective landlords to “Just ignore the smell, we’re bombing for roaches again” and “Now, just know the biohazard cleanup specialists will be coming in on the fifteenth to clean up that blood left over from the . . . [clears throat] previous owner,” I resorted to calling my mom—who within twenty-four hours had Olivia calling me, offering up her spare room. Now, mind you, Olivia’s lips were pressed together pretty tightly when she said, “No, no, I don’t really need a room dedicated to a home gym,” when I questioned her. But, given it was move in with her or back with my parents, I didn’t press that much.

See? You do for family.

The Cade way.

I tiptoe toward my room and am just reaching the wall-to-wall bookcase, the only space in the apartment that is allowed to exist in disarray—with cookbooks and classics, books on French and dictionaries in Spanish, thick volumes on law and ancient hardcovers on the principles of economics, and even a few glossy ones on fitness poking out from the lowest corner, all stuffed in a puzzle-like manner both horizontally and vertically—when Olivia calls my name. “Oh, Savvy!”

I squeeze my eyes shut. Turn and see her pulling out an AirPod from one ear.

I loathe being called Savvy.

“You get your steps in today?” she says through pants, her forearms slick with sweat as she sits upright and presses both hands to her hips. Her legs are so skinny in her black leggings they look like a granddaddy longlegs racing on a hamster wheel.

I hesitate. “Nearly,” I lie.

Olivia lifts an eyebrow. Her spindly legs slow. She checks her watch. “You’ve got an hour left.”

“I know.”

“Will you be able to meet your quota for the day? Exactly how far off are you?”

“Not too far,” I say.

Olivia sighs. “I can make up for the shortage if you need me to, Savvy. I mean, as long as it’s not too far off—”

“I’ll handle it,” I say firmly, but even as I’m saying so I feel a faint pulsing heartbeat in my ears, like a ticking bomb. My hands move instinctively to my laptop bag and the manuscript inside.

“Yes, but . . . you’ve said that before,” Olivia says dubiously.

This is what you get when you live in an apartment with your hyperactive, perfectionist sister. Olivia is three years younger than me, graduated summa cum laude from Vanderbilt at twenty, and has been working on dual PhDs in law and economics since August. Because why get one doctorate when you can get two?

And this whole tracking-steps thing is Olivia’s baby. The Steps-4-Life Step-a-thon runs each February. One month of tracking and logging steps every day in order to reach a monthly goal. What’s even better? You can’t fib. It syncs from your watch to your app, and then you’re stuck. Being honest. With an obsessive-compulsive micromanager for team leader. Who lives with you. And monitors quite literally, your every move.

It started three years ago after Olivia got the flu for a week and was in bed for five days. So what did she do? Sit in bed for five days watching Frasier reruns? Make horrible online purchases at 1:00 a.m. only to wake up to Amazon boxes on her doorstep she couldn’t recall ordering? Sleep?

No. What Olivia did was use the time stuck in bed as a springboard to brainstorm, figure out the logistics, secure the money, build the app, and ultimately put the stamp on Steps-4-Life, her own nonprofit organization dedicated to conquering seasonal depression by encouraging togetherness, healthy weight loss, and self-esteem. To Olivia, every problem can be cured with exercise. And as people weren’t exactly stampeding with enthusiasm over her first idea, Ultra-Marathons-4-Life, she eventually whittled down her expectations to “meet the lower people [aka normal humans] where they are” and settled on walking.

In three years Steps-4-Life has raised over three million dollars and has become a yearly tradition in over thirty-six states across America.

I, too, had the flu that week three years ago. I ended up with a humidifier in the shape of an elephant, three shirts from Aerie, and a crate of dark chocolate from a fair-trade organization in Ghana.

“I don’t want to pester you about this, Savvy,” Olivia continues. “It’s just that, you know . . .” She swings her arm in a hearty way like she does whenever she gives her slogan. “We’re all in this together. And you did say you’d get twelve thousand steps each day. You did”—her voice lowers solemnly—“make the pledge.”

Oh, geez. Now she’s looking down on me as if I’ve enlisted for war, arrived at the front lines, and am considering hightailing it for the woods.

I don’t have time for this.

I’m just about to open my mouth to tell her I’m sorry that I was stuck in a sensory float pod with an author, trying not to hyperventilate, and I’m sorry about the banquet afterward—all the while knowing she still won’t be able to fathom why I didn’t just run in place at dinner while chewing my asparagus—when a voice speaks up from behind.

“Leave her alone, Olivia. The Cade ranking isn’t going anywhere tonight.”

I stiffen as I feel his breath so close it lifts the hairs on my neck. He must’ve come from the hall bathroom, but to me, who didn’t hear him over the whizzing of the Peloton bike, he might as well have emerged from thin air. My reaction would’ve been the same either way.

“’Xcuse me, Savvy.”

I feel the lightest touch of his fingers on my hip, and it takes everything in me not to jump a foot. Do not move, I tell myself firmly. Do not react.

But despite myself, my heart thuds against my chest as he begins to move past me in the slim hallway.